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Toyota vows victory in NASCAR this season

After several years of competing in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck series, Toyota became the first import manufacturer to jump into the big leagues of NASCAR Nextel Cup racing in 2007. The Camry-badged Nextel Cup car started off last season with some high profile rules infractions at the Daytona 500, but actually managed a halfway decent season with two top five and 11 top ten finishes. Given the number of cars that run NASCAR races, that's a better percentage than Toyota's ever managed in Formula One. However, like the F1 team, a Toyota NASCAR entry has yet to score an outright victory.

Toyota's Motorsports VP Jim Aust has declared that this situation will not stand. While the F1 team has been given until 2010 to get its act together, Aust is pretty adamant that the Camry will start winning in 2008 when NASCAR dumps Nextel as its primary sponsor and renames its series the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Now that the company has sorted out its engine for next season's Sprint Cup cars and Joe Gibbs Racing has switched to Toyota, Aust feels that Toyota's time has come. We'll see.

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Anonymous

Anonymous

7 Years Ago

and since Tony Stewart is going to be driving Toyota this year, don't be surprised if you start seeing alot of Camrys with #20 stickers in the rear windows. We'll probably start seeing alot of Monte Carlo trade-ins in the used section of Toyota dealerships.

Or, heaven forbid, Toyota will start making "special edition" Tony Stewart Camrys. Oh yes, the possibilities are endless, and worrisome at the same time. I don't think I could stomach seeing black and orange Camrys on the streets. Those Monte Carlos were bad enough.

Anonymous

7 Years Ago

Why oh why can't the US embrace touring car racing like the rest of the world? It's dynamically more interesting (i.e. proper road courses) and the machinery used is a direct reflection of show room models. I was watching an Aussie V8 Supercar race on SPEED the other day and was blown away by how visceral it was and by how violently the drivers muscle those cars around a race track. Let's evolve from the stone age US motor sports fans.

Anonymous

Anonymous

7 Years Ago

If Toyota has trouble putting a car in the winners circle, NASCAR will adjust their "performance equalization rules" untill they do. Too much money involved not to. It's all about the show after all, even the drivers call it a show when interviewed.

Anonymous

Anonymous

7 Years Ago

Well Toyota is aiming directly at the truck market with a big sticker on the tundraâs here in Texas that reads, âBuilt by Texans for Texansâ.

I havenâtâ liked NASCAR much since they turned it into an IROC completion (about 20 years ago or more). I want to see manufacturer against manufacture not driver against driver. It looks like F1 is going the same direction limiting technology =(.

Anonymous

7 Years Ago

I'm an avid NASCAR fan, but I have been losing faith in the sport ever since they claimed there would be 'more manufacturer identity'. So putting stickers on a car makes it a Dodge or Ford now? They chassis are exactly the same. France needs to leave, and let someone who knows a thing or two about NASCAR run the gig. I'd love to see an actual Charger or whatever run the race. Straight HEMI power.

Anonymous

Anonymous

7 Years Ago

with old timers like my self not going to the NASCAR races as much as we used to NASCAR needed to tap into the people who buy non big 3 cars to sell tickets. that is why toyota is there,NASCAR wanted them. i used to go to 12/15 races a year but now the cost is so much i can only go to daytona for speed weeks and 4 tickets for all the races there cost me $3000

Anonymous

7 Years Ago

Just a small correction. Toyota isn't the "first import manufacturer to jump into the big leagues of NASCAR". Back in the '50s, there were a few foreign makes that competed in NASCAR, and a Jaguar actually won NASCAR's first road-course race.